CandleLight
by onedracomalfoy
Summary: ..'There is no one there with her, and she sometimes longs for someone to speak to, someone to poke fun of her brains, even. Any trusted company is better than being alone, she thinks.' [oneshot] Major character deaths.


**This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.**

candle-light

She does her homework by candle-light now, so as to stay away from the glares and whispers. There is no one there with her, and she sometimes longs for someone to speak to, someone to poke fun of her brains, even. Any trusted company is better than being alone, she thinks.

Sometimes she will skip a particularly difficult Arithmancy question and inwardly scold herself. Be careful, the voice in her head chides her. If you don't do well on homework, what will you have left to hold on to? Homework is who she is. Intelligence and being a know-it-all is the only weapon she possesses, so she takes a deep breath and keeps right on, knowing that it is the only thing she can be good at.

When the other girls enter and see the bags underneath her eyes, eyes which were once round, kind, and chocolate brown, eyes which had become sunken and gaunt, a skeleton peering out through her thin layer of skin covering her body, an air of discomfort fills the room. She turns away from her former friends and hears them whispering on their four-posters. She can barely understand some of the things they mutter in hushed voices.

"I heard she escaped from You-Know-Who," whispers a voice suspiciously similar to Lavender Brown's. "Apparently Ron and Harry went to go save her and they ended up dying instead of her!"

"I can't believe it…Harry and Ron, both gone forever? Someone said that they went peacefully, at least. Goodness, Hermione must feel _awful_…and I went to the _ball_ with Harry," Parvati Patil mutters mournfully. They all become silent all of a sudden. Hermione peers out of her bed hangings and sees a wan-faced Ginny Weasley glaring at the gossiping girls, all piled on one of their beds.

"They didn't go peacefully," hisses Ginny. "Voldemort (they all cringe at the sound of his name) and his Death Eaters used the Cruciatus Curse on them repeatedly until they went insane." Hermione puts her hands over her ears and shuts her eyes as tight as possible. Block it out, she tells herself. Block it all out and it won't be real. It will never be real, just a nightmare. Please stop Ginny, _oh God, please stop_. "After being tortured for days they were hung for their amusement. Ron choked to death. But hey, at least Harry's neck snapped right when he was pushed off the stool, eh?"

"NO!" Hermione roars. "_NO! STOP IT, GINNY! JUST SHUT THE BLOODY FUCK UP! HOW THE FUCK DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT WAS LIKE? WERE YOU THERE GINNY? DID YOU WATCH THEM SCREAM FOR THEIR LIVES, FOR ANYTHING TO STOP THE PAIN AS THEY WERE MURDERED? NO, GINNY, YOU FUCKING DIDN'T, SO JUST STOP ACTING LIKE YOU KNOW WHAT REALLY FUCKING HAPPENED_!"

The entire room becomes completely silent. The only sound that emits from any of the girls is Hermione's heavy, labored sobs. She waits and shivers under the shocked glances from the other Gryffindors who have just witnessed her outburst, hoping that one of themwill run to her side and hold her close, just for a while, just to be held.

But no one comes to comfort her. Ginny stares at Hermione's trembling form in increasing horror. Hermione looks away from them and lies down in bed, discarding her homework and blocking out any other sound that the girls make. She doesn't want to feel anything anymore, she doesn't want to miss them, and she doesn't want the guilt. Oh, how she loathes the guilt, the sickening guilt that eats away at her insides, and is always biting and nipping at her conscience. The dull, empty sobs never heal the wounds that were inflicted on her.

She wakes up in darkness that night and gazes at her bedside table, and the waning white candle which stands weakly upon it. Wax is overflowing over its tin case and is now dried upon the mahogany. Hermione takes in a deep breath and blows outward. The flame slowly but dutifully extinguishes, and the room plunges into an even deeper blackness. Calmly, Hermione once again puts her head against her pillow and pulls her comforter closer around her body, allowing her dreams to take her somewhere reality never could.

However, before she falls asleep, a nagging in the back of her mind won't cease, a nagging which is telling her to relight that candle and finish her homework, because that's what she is: a know-it-all, and a girl with smarts, the girl who had managed to get away while her friends could not.

And that is all she would ever be.

end


End file.
